Page 53 of Dissent

I blinked. “Wait, what? I thought you sent him?” She shook her head. “But he said…” My sentence dropped off. If Edith didn’t send him, did that mean he came looking for me? I dropped my spoon and looked across the caf at his usual spot.

It was empty.

Wes hadn’t come to dinner.

“Well, next time,” Chelsea sneered, “stay on the trail. Got it? We’ve got enough to worry about around here. We don’t need to add looking for rich girls to our problems.”

“Chels,” Matias said, a hint of a warning in his tone.

“It’strue. It’s bad enough we have to deal with her freakin’ dad and her damn brother—”

“Hey!” The word shot out of me. I could handle someone talking poorly about Raúl, but Jacob was a different story. “Leave my brother out of this.”

“Your brother is just as much of an ass as your dad.”

“Stop it!”

Chelsea straightened herself, a cold snicker taking over. “See, Edith? I told you she wasn’t one of us. She’s a Telvian bitch through and through.”

Matias raised his voice. “Knock it off, Chelsea.” That caught her attention. A pained expression crossed her face before it went blank. She stood, grabbed her bowl, and marched off.

Edith’s eyes looked as big as our soup bowls, whereas Matias had his chin tucked and a dark expression I couldn’t read. She looked at him, but when he didn’t notice her, I heard a smacking sound come from under the table.

“Ow!” Matias yelped, leaning forward as his hand darted underneath. Their eyes locked. “What the hell was that for?”

She waggled her brows and motioned with her head, speaking silently to him. He groaned, sighing heavily as he stood up and grabbed his bowl.

“I’ll catch you tomorrow, Mara.” To Edith, he said, “Walk her back for me?” She nodded, and before I could say anything else, he was gone.

I whirled on Edith. “What the hell was that?”

She grimaced. “Look, as much as I want you and Matias to live happily ever after, he’s got to be careful with how he lets down Chelsea. That girl is wound so tight, god only knows what she’s going to do when she realizes things are really over between them.”

I glared at her. “Okay, what am I not getting here? One day you’re telling me to put the moves on Matias, and now you’re sending him weird, telepathic eye messages to chase after his ex-girlfriend. I mean,seriously!What the hell?” She was just as bad as Wes!

“Chill, newbie. It’s complicated. Matias is all Chelsea has left. They grew up together, and everyone around here expects them to end up together.”

“What!”

“Ya heard right. Chelsea and Matias’s parents died fighting for the Dissenters, so they were both pretty much raised by the resistance.” She lowered her voice, leaning over the table toward me as though she were about to reveal a secret. “Their parents even promised them to one another when they were alive.” She leaned back. “Of course, that all kind of fell through when they all died. But Chelsea still fully expects that she and Matias will be married once this all blows over.”

Oh my god.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I grumbled, shoulders slumping.

“Nope.”

I was such an idiot.

Edith cleared her throat. “So, as much as I’m allTeam Mara, I also think Matias needs to be careful with how he navigates this. Because mark my words, it’ll crush her.”

My stomach twisted. I looked down at my soup, dropping the spoon in the bowl. Suddenly, I wasn’t hungry anymore.

***

The situation since last night’s dinner was less than ideal. Chelsea had been an enormouspain in my ass all morning. I was relieved when she told me I had been summoned to headquarters to meet Sasha. I left our tent so fast, I didn’t have time to find out what she wanted to see me about. But now that I was out and taking the brisk morning walk to headquarters, I was getting nervous. What the hell could Sasha want to see me for?

I reached the tent and was greeted by a soldier who promptly motioned me in. The room was empty, but movement toward the back caught my eye. I noticed a desk, and there was Sasha reviewing papers and jotting down some notes

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